Thursday, December 13, 2012

Paul McCartney urges UN to "Come Together" to Promote Meatless Monday

As we have said in previous blogs, Meatless Monday has become a global movement that has caught the attention of many celebrities. Most recently, Meatless Monday has been promoted by the music legend and icon, Paul McCartney.

In a letter, McCartney urged two members of the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Executive Secretary, Ms. Christiana Figueres and Mr. H.E. Abdullah bin Hamad Al-Attiyah, to promote the idea of Meatless Monday, so that more people could be aware of the connections between current meat production processes and climate change.

He believes that the UN has the perfect platform to be able to effectively spread this message because Meatless Monday would fit perfectly into the UN's goals for sustainability, and help them to augment their current campaigns. Just two months ago, the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) started a long term campaign that would help people to transition their diets to include eating less meat.

McCartney believes UN could be a powerful tool in changing the way people currently consume meant and I think he is exactly right. By adding more initiatives and more policies, the UN could more effectively educate people about the consequences of eating meat and therefore advise them on how to proactively make changes in order to make more environmentally conscious decisions.

But, I was thinking...what if the UN and Paul McCartney decided to collaborate in order to promote Meatless Monday via the power of song. I can see it now...

(sung to tune of "Come Together" by the Beatles)

Here come old flank steak

He got carbon groovin up quickly

He got sprayfield runoff

He got factory farming

He got antibiotics in his blood

Got be a free range

To just do what he please

Chrous:

Come together

right now

For Meatless Monday

I'm sure it would be climbing the charts in no time!? But, on a more serious note, the kind of policy change and initiatives that Paul is urging the UN to make, is the same kind of changes we at IC Dining strive to make on smaller level. By educating the student body and IC diners about the connection between meat production and global climate change, we can encourage more people to consider going meatless one day a week, or even more! Just our collective one day reduction can save gallons of water and tons of energy.